Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne scored a goal and set up another in his first start in more than two months as City beat Nottingham Forest 3-0 on Wednesday to end their four-game losing streak in the Premier League.

Bernardo Silva and Jeremy Doku also scored to help end City’s miserable seven-game winless streak in all competitions and lift Pep Guardiola’s men provisionally fourth in the table, while Forest dropped to seventh.

De Bruyne had not been in the starting line-up since suffering an abdominal injury on September 18 and the Belgian maestro’s presence was immediately felt at the Etihad Stadium as he helped put City on the scoresheet in the eighth minute as he headed Goal headed and Silva shot the ball into the goal from close range.

De Bruyne scored his goal in the 31st minute when he took advantage of a pass from Doku and fired narrowly into the goal from the 18-yard area. In the 57th minute, Doku almost decided the game when he met a pinpoint long ball from Erling Haaland, penetrated his man and fired it into the far corner.

Belgian star De Bruyne, who had been reassuring City fans with his name all evening, had come on as a substitute in the team’s five previous games, including in Sunday’s 2-0 defeat to league leaders Liverpool Champion City finished fifth in the table.

There were questions about an alleged falling out between the oft-injured De Bruyne and Guardiola, but the 33-year-old was given the captain’s armband on Wednesday and led the team in style.

Forest wasted a number of chances, one of the most glaring being when Chris Wood was one on one with goalkeeper Stefan Ortega but fired his shot wide. Wood was left to rue that opportunity to equalize when De Bruyne scored less than a minute later.

Guardiola chose Ortega as his goalkeeper instead of Ederson for the second game in a row, and the German made a spectacular flying save to deny Morgan Gibbs-White’s shot early in the game.